Ali-Reza Bhojani

Contact Details:

Ali-reza.bhojani@durham.ac.uk

Current Activities:

Doctoral Thesis title: "Towards an 'Adliyya reading of Shari'a; The Role of Independent Rationality in Shi'i legal theory and its potential to inform the Muslim religious response to 'modernity'"

Supervisors: Colin Turner and Mehmet Asutay

Other research interests include:
Epistemological issues in Muslim religious thought, Muslim or 'Islamic' legal theory, Qur’anic hermeneutics, Shi’i studies, relationship between Muslim theology and law, theological ethics, Muslim religious responses to modernity, methodological issues in ‘Islamic studies’

Available for collaboration/comment on:
Muslim religious thought, 'Islamic' law and legal theory, Shi’i studies, traditional Islamic studies in the West

Professional membership:
College of Optometrists, BRISMES

Qualifications:

• PhD, Durham University (2009 - present)
• MA (Distinction) Research Methods, Durham University (2009)
• MA (Distinction) Classical Islamic Studies & Arabic, Al-Mahdi Institute (2008)
• MCOptom, College of Optometrists (2004)
• BSc Hons Optometry, Bradford University (2003)

Publications/Papers:

Peer reviewed journal article: ‘Ijtihad in traditional Shi’i thought: Obstacles and Inconsistencies’, Shia Affairs, Vol. 1 (2008) pp. 113-129.

"The moral deficit in Islamic banking and finance; Muslim meta-ethics and the fiqi equivalence of profit loss sharing and fixed income modes of financing". Presented at the FEEM, Italy and Durham IFP conference entitled Moral values and Financial Markets: Assessing the Resilience of Islamic Finance against Financial Crisis, 18-19 November 2009, Milan, Italy.

"Critical realism; from legal positivism in Muslim jurisprudence towards a natural law reading of Shari'a". Presented at the Warwick Law School Conference entitled Re-imaging the Shari'a, 13-16 September 2009, Venice, Italy.

"Al-mustaqilat al-'aqliyya: Theological baggage or potential source of diversity and change in Shi'i jurisprudence?". Presented at the 3rd workshop of the network of British practitioners and researchers on Islamic Law entitled Diversity and Change in Shi'i Jurisprudence, 4-5 June 2009, Exeter, UK.

Academic Awards:

• CASAW 1+3 PhD studentship (2008-2012)
• Bradford University Stidwell Award in Binocular Vision (2003)